Before implementing new technologies and solutions, IT leaders must justify the expense—nobody gets a blank check. Since they don’t directly generate revenue, cybersecurity solutions can be particularly challenging to justify.  

Board members and stakeholders want to know what makes new security technology worth the investment. Two key concepts help IT leaders argue the case for implementing security technologies, but they are often misunderstood. By the end of this blog post, you’ll know how and when to use these processes to make your case for new security investments. 

What is Proof of Concept (PoC)? 

A PoC is a small-scale project that tests the functionality of a technology or solution. A cybersecurity PoC project explores whether a particular security measure may improve the organization’s ability to protect itself from cyberattacks. 

Every organization is different, with its own tech stack and a unique set of security risks and vulnerabilities. At the same time, many security features overlap in ways that can create unpredictable results—especially when automation and artificial intelligence is involved. 

A PoC project allows IT leaders and their teams to prove that a particular technology works in your environment. It’s an experiment that validates the claims made by vendors, consultants, and others. 

Note: Cybersecurity professionals also refer to Proof of Concept Exploits (PoCEs), which are a separate but related concept. These are simulated attacks against IT systems or networks that show how attackers could exploit security weaknesses, in theory. They demonstrate that successful attacks are possible without calculating how plausible or cost-effective they might be. 

4 phases of the PoC process: 

1. Preparation is where you set clear expectations of what the PoC process should accomplish. It usually involves creating a controlled environment and deploying solutions to observe how technologies interact in that environment. 

1. Deployment is the process of implementing the proposed technology in the experimental setup. This might mean having a third-party vendor send an engineer to implement their solution and run the test. It may include basic training so you can navigate the product and use its features. 

1. Execution begins when the solution is tested in the controlled environment. The testing process often takes more than one day, as most modern technologies need time to deliver results. 

1. Summary and reporting provide in-depth data on how the solution performed during the test. If completed successfully, teams should be able to predict how it would function in your live production environment as a result. 

Benefits of running PoC exercises 

Designing and executing PoC exercises helps filter out technology implementations and solutions that won’t deliver value in your specific context. This helps IT leaders propose solutions that achieve the following: 

• Risk mitigation. Small-scale experimentation helps mitigate the risk of deploying a suboptimal technology. If a new product or solution fails to deliver meaningful results, the overall loss is limited. 

• Efficient use of resources. Implementing new security technologies can be time and resource intensive. Testing the most important features of a potential new investment keeps the team from devoting important resources to solutions that may not work. 

• Faster decision-making. Setting up PoC experiments allows IT leaders to quickly validate potential technologies and solutions. This speeds up the decision-making process and makes it easier to filter out solutions that won’t work in your environment. 

• Increased stakeholder buy-in. Once a particular solution has passed the PoC test, demonstrating its value to stakeholders is much easier. The PoC report shows that the solution will generate a meaningful result, although it won’t quantify the value of the investment on its own. 

What is Proof of Value (PoV)? 

PoV offers deeper perspective and quantifiable insights into the results you can expect from a new solution or technology. It tests the product against strictly defined success criteria and measures its real-world impact on security operations. This gives IT leaders and stakeholders clear data on what to expect post-implementation. 

PoV testing may require deploying solutions in simulated production environments for a significant period of time. This might mean training some employees to exclusively use the new solution and gather data, while others continue working as normal. After the testing process is complete, stakeholders can analyze the differences between both groups and discover the true value of the solution itself. 

Benefits of conducting PoV testing 

Conducting a comprehensive PoV test gives IT leaders and stakeholders certainty about the business value of new technology. Instead of presenting a vague list of potential benefits, you can show hard data justifying the outcome of new investments. 

The biggest benefit of conducting a PoV exercise is the ability to communicate the outcome of a new technology implementation in terms of its Return on Investment (ROI). This dramatically reduces the risk associated with implementing new technologies and makes buy-in much easier to achieve. 

Another key benefit of PoV testing is in-depth feedback from trained employees using the new solution. Their experience can be a valuable asset when deciding between multiple options and configurations. 

The difference between PoC and PoV 

The main difference between PoC and PoV is that one focuses on whether a product works or is viable for the scenario; the other calculates how much the product or service is worth, or its value to the company. IT leaders considering complex and expensive technology implementations may invest in both PoC and PoV testing before committing fully to a vendor. 

IT leaders may conduct several PoC versus the largely infrequent occurrence of a PoV. By the time decision-makers are interested in evaluating the intrinsic value of a new technology or service solution, it must already be proven functional in the organization’s IT environment. 

Visibility is vital to both processes 

Both testing processes rely on IT leaders having complete visibility into their environment, tech stack, processes and outcomes. These tests don’t work without the ability to observe, collect, and analyze data from multiple sources. This level of visibility in a complex enterprise IT environment is vital for making data-driven decisions about new technology implementations. 

Lumifi helps organizations gain unlimited visibility into their security processes and data flows. Find out how we can help you unlock the value of new technology implementations and solutions. If you are ready, seek a POV of our services as well.